Iran Seizes Two U.S. Navy Vessels, Detains 10 U.S. Sailors
First test rockets, now this.
Tuesday, the U.S. experienced yet another provocation from Iran who seized two U.S. Navy boats carrying ten U.S. sailors. Iran promised to return everyone and everything shortly. So, yay?
NBC News: 10 US sailors were on training mission when their boat experienced mechanical difficulty and drifted into Iranian-claimed waters
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) January 12, 2016
Senior defense official to reporters (per @CNN): It appears two US vessels entered Iranian waters briefly pic.twitter.com/CuyXS1cmxj
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 12, 2016
Iran holding two US Navy boats & crew, Pentagon says, adding it has assurances Tehran will return them “promptly” https://t.co/OKwV3j6ouv
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 12, 2016
BREAKING: White House says is working to resolve situation with Navy boats in Iranian custody, wants personnel returned to normal deployment
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) January 12, 2016
Remind me again why we gave them buttloads of cash and just about everything else they wanted?
on CNN, Earnest is now saying these new Iranian hostilities is exactly why the Obama WH pursued the nuclear deal w Iran.
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 12, 2016
Iranian reports tell a different story:
IRGC arrested 10 Americans over illegal entering Iran’s water in Persian Gulf – Farsnews on @telegram
— Sobhan Hassanvand (@Hassanvand) January 12, 2016
Fars says US sailors know area, carrying GPS, intentionally entered Iran’s territorial waters
— Sobhan Hassanvand (@Hassanvand) January 12, 2016
According to the Associated Press:
The crew of two small Navy craft are being held by Iran, but American officials have received assurances from Tehran that the crew and vessels will be returned safely and promptly. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told The Associated Press that the boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the U.S. lost contact with them. “We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly,” Cook said. U.S. officials said that the incident happened near Farsi Island, situated in the middle of the Persian Gulf. They say it stemmed from some type of mechanical trouble with one of the boats, causing them to run aground. The troops were picked up by Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has forged a personal relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif through three years of nuclear negotiations, called Zarif immediately on learning of the incident, according to a senior U.S. official. Kerry “personally engaged with Zarif on this issue to try to get to this outcome,” the official said. Kerry learned of the incident around 12:30 p.m. EST as he and Defense Secretary Ash Carter were meeting their Filipino counterparts at the State Department, the official said.
Needless to say, given that the President’s annual State of the Union address is mere hours away, the timing is more than a little suspect:
That White House speechwriter who just sent his final draft. pic.twitter.com/f4S8onj6Db
— Donny Ferguson (@DonnyFerguson) January 12, 2016
4 hrs and 45 min until #SOTU where #Obama will tout success of #IranDeal yet two Navy boats are in Iranian custody. Will he address?
— Ashley Pratte (@AshPratte) January 12, 2016
Late last month, Iran launched a test rocket near U.S. and French military vessels and commercial ships in the Persian Gulf, according to Fox News. Video footage of that test rocket was released Saturday.
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Comments
I wonder what material or political collateral Iran has or will receive in return.
America’s abandonment of friends and allies; backing of the poorly realized social justice movement “Arab Spring”; and unprovoked wars and hostility throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Eurasia, has caused the loss of hearts, minds, and respect of people around the world.
What Iran has right now is whole bunch super secret technology that those boats carry. Even if we get the equipment back (doubtful) I’m sure their people are all over right now to determine what it can do and how it works. They can then work on ways to counter the technology.
Welp, as Glenn Reynolds has observed, the Carterization of the Pres. ScamWOW regime is now complete…
Remember, Iran has NOT yet received any of their frozen assets in the US. They are so certain Obama will certify their compliance and give them the money, they have been doing everything in their power to humiliate him and America since the deal.
The deal which they never signed, btw.
Not quite. He still needs to get a bunch of people killed in a botched rescue attempt.
Would a non-attempted rescue qualify?
F**k the boats. Ten American sailors are being held captive by…. Obama’s foreign policy/national security ineptitudes. Remembering the magical mystery tour that was the Carter administration, I’m concerned we won’t see these guys again until January 21, 2017. If at all. Un-frickin’-believable.
Correction: 9 male, 1 female sailors.
This could be an opportunity for Iran to act with ostentatious graciousness. And if it does, we won’t find out the quid pro quo until after the election.
I do not think Iran defines grace as we do. Nothing goes easy with them.
Maybe I’m old fashioned but I am not comfortable with women on an obvious reconnoiter of that island. Is she our first female SEAL?
It seems certain English phrases don’t translate well into Liberalbonics….. “shall not be infringed” and “death to America” being two prime examples.
I bet the ‘mechanical problems’ were kinetic in origin. A riverboat can’t tow another one back off a piddly little island?
They need better lies. Maybe the boats were despondent because of an anti-Islamic youtube video and spontaneously started protesting?
And no choppers in the Gulf that could have removed 10 US sailors? This “story” stinks of lies and propaganda.
I agree. There’s no way that our sailors didn’t know what waters they were in. A few prow pushes would have kept the disabled vessel from drifting amok into Iranian waters until a tow could come if the non-disabled vessel for some freakish reason had no means of towing the disabled vessel.
The original report was that one vessel became disabled and they stayed together. Now it’s said, perhaps in error, that both vessels were disabled. I simply cannot believe that such an event was accidental, even less so if both vessels were ‘disabled’.
Something stinks like Bergdahl Benghazi here. I don’t buy this story AT ALL. I cannot wait to see how this unfolds. I wonder if any of it is even true. It could be cover for emptying Gitmo of more than the 10 scheduled to go in the next week or so or for something even more nefarious. The whole damn story could be fiction, for that matter.
So, there were two boats, and both had engine failures? Of course, this could not be true. Only a dumb ass (or O-bomb-a) could believe this.
Not buying the official story. Barack would rather lie to us than have to deal with an act of unlawful aggression.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They’re testing us. There will be more and it will become even more deadly.
Kinda on the same subject, have you seen what’s going on in Germany? It will soon be here if POTUS Dinglebarry has his way:
https://geeezblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/a-word-to-germany-is-a-word-to-us/
Everyone reading these comments should read the linked article about the plight of German health-care providers dealing with the invasion. A real eye-opener.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Please read carefully for content.
Note, there is a claim and discussion that ONE of the boats had engine trouble, causing it to drift and “run aground” onto Farsi Island.
Farsi Island is a glorified sandbar. it’s about 83 meters x 83 meters (appx. 7.5km2) and it has an “Iranian Naval Base” on it. Now think about that. What size “naval base” sits on an area a little larger than a professional baseball field? (not a ~stadium~ a baseball FIELD).
Also notice the exact phrasing Iranian ~claimed~ waters. This is an attempt by the Iranians to exert their influence farther out into the Gulf than would normally be recognized by international law.
My guess is that one of the boats had mechanical trouble, and instead of abandoning it, the sailors thought they could salvage it, but it drifted onto a nearby sandbar. In the mean-time the Iranians got into a larger patrol boat or small cruiser, surrounded them and rather than starting an international incident, the Sailors politely surrendered, even though they were probably in International waters.
Not a Navy man here, but I would think that if one boat failed mechanically, the other would tether and/or tow it away from sand bars and such. I am a boat man, living on a large river, and that’s what we civilian boaters do when somebody breaks down, runs out of gas, etc. I have to believe that mechanical failure is common enough that the Navy has long established contingency plans.
I suspect the Iranians simply surrounded and took the boats knowing Obama was establishing his legacy (ugh) tonight in his SOTU address, a major portion of it being his wondrous Iran nuke deal. A thumb in the eye of a very weak Obama establishing for Iran’s regional enemies that having the US as an ally no longer means anything substantive.
From Weasel Zippers: A tweet reporting a WH release:
Best line yet from the WH: “It’s 2 am [in Iran] and it would be unsafe for Iran to release American military personnel at night.”
http://www.weaselzippers.us/
—–
Obama military: “People! People! Be careful! It’s dark out there!”
OK, making the least likely assumption in the universe, and taking the regime’s story at face value; boat breaks down. You can guaran-bloody-tee that there is some means of communications to let the powers that be know that things are not going well. Even assuming that the other boat had a breakdown and could not exit overloaded with the crew of the first boat; you can bet that someone in the area is sending help. A lot of it.
UNLESS
Orders are received from higher up [NCA level] not to.
Sound like a familiar M.O.?
What happens is on him.
My thoughts exactly. The timing in regards to the SOTU address is just t-o-o-o-o coincidental.
I’m betting that Obama will trade them some weapons-grade uranium for their safe return. But, they’ll get to keep the ships.
And all Pakistan or someone else got was an experimental helicopter in the bin Laden trade deal.
While Obama gives his SOTU, staff is back at the WH furiously writing up his apologies to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
I was joking, but reports are coming out that the WH did in fact apologize to the IRG.
When Iran fired those missiles they were snatching Obama’s pants down and laughing.
Now they have placed him in a headlock and are giving him noogies.
Next month they will bend his arm behind his back and tell him to say, “Uncle!”
What a delicious softball for Trump to smack out of the park.
Draft-dodger Trump wouldn’t have the first idea of what to do in such matters.
But he went to a military high school!
Did Nikki Haley bring this incident up in her rebuttal to the SOTU?
Those of us old enough to remember Jimmy Carter and the hostage crisis are getting the same feeling again. Only when the US President is naive in foreign affairs and weak on the military does this sort of thing happen. Obama is being tested and he is, as expected, and inevitable, failing the test. The only saving grace is that we are approaching the last year of his constitutional term. But, how much damage can a weak president do in a year. Lots.